


Oh then sinne I

by Ark



Category: True Detective
Genre: A lot of sex, Alternate Universe - Renaissance, An excuse for old-fashioned porn, Knights - Freeform, M/M, Rust in leather trousers, Sex, Undercover Missions, Yuletide 2015
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-20
Updated: 2015-12-20
Packaged: 2018-05-07 18:11:03
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,380
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5466029
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ark/pseuds/Ark
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>God made man, and some men he gives to each other; of this doctrine Marty is now certain.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Oh then sinne I

**Author's Note:**

  * For [dr_zook](https://archiveofourown.org/users/dr_zook/gifts).



> Yuletide story for dr_zook. Thanks so much for your incredible renaissance AU suggestion! Once I read that, I was lost (and found). Title from Richard Barnfield's "The Affectionate Shepherd" (1594):
> 
> If it be sinne to love a sweet-fac'd boy,  
> Whose amber locks trust up in golden tramels  
> Dangle adowne his lovely cheekes with joy,  
> When pearle and flowers his faire haire enamels;  
> If it be sinne to love a lovely lad,  
> Oh then sinne I, for whom my soule is sad.

Marty returns to the inn on the allotted day, only to find their narrow room empty. Swept clean, there is no sign of footfall from earlier hours. He seizes hold of the skinny, pinch-faced girl who is tasked with keeping the place, and pins her with questions, but she blurts that no one has entered the room since Marty and his assistant were there last.

Heart in his throat, Marty heads into the tavern downstairs. He is an intimidating figure, dark doublet and naked sword belted at the waist, and daggers beside the sword; more daggers are in his boots, bound to his shins, hidden up his sleeve. His sand-colored hair is overgrown -- too much like Rust’s, too long on the road away from other men to mind. It makes him look wild, unpredictable.

Silence falls across the crowded room at his appearance. His coat of office is stitched plainly on his shoulder, his training evident in the hard march of his walk, the squared shoulders and ramrod spine. Men leap from his path, and women cast coy glances behind their eyelashes. 

The Order that Marty serves has fallen from former glories. The old ways are dying. Knights no more in anything but title and years of arduous quests. No longer needed to lead men into battle astride massive steeds, in shining coats of armor. Wars move quickly now, the battlefields vast, the weapons sharper. The quests are in shadow, without colorful banners to unfurl.

Those who turn from history would call Marty no better than a mercenary or a common cutthroat in the service of the Emperor. Yet the Emperor’s authority, stamped deep into velvet, is still enough to command him some scraping respect and a healthy amount of fear. He makes use of both.

Marty has eyes for one man -- the innkeeper, who cowers at his approach. Marty soon has him up and hauled to the wall. The silence spins out; none dare to breathe a word and risk drawing his attention. 

“My man. Where is he?”

“Lord Martin, we set a watcher just as you asked. The boy was up for two days, watching the crossroads, as you said he might be injured or in need of aid. We saw no sign of him.”

“I am not satisfied by this,” Marty snarls. The harsh sound of his voice frightens even him -- and his heart is beating fit to burst. “Have him watch again.”

“Yes, my lord. Right away, my lord.”

“And bring me a tankard of ale,” Marty adds, “the largest you have. No, two.” Two will prove that he expects to be joined. Will not allow him to dwell on the worst fears. A tankard for Rust must summon him.

Marty lets the fool go, stalks to a table in the shadows, where he can watch the door and keep an eye on the comings and goings of the room. Slowly, the noise of squalor resumes. The place is a den of iniquity: they chose it for being a rendezvous point where people might do as they pleased unnoticed, and there is plenty to keep an eye on while the hours burn through too many candles. 

Musicians with badly strung instruments strum away, creating a furious racket. Whores wheedle and tease prospective clientele -- whores of every color, shape, creed, and style of dress; nothing is too shocking; men in women’s dresses, women with short-shorn hair and codpieces can be bought openly. Traders trade in dangerous tinctures, promising brilliant dreams.

If Rust were not so late, had he sent any sort of word, Marty would surrender to those dreams gratefully, or dally with a willing bed-partner. Where could he be? His clever, mercurial assistant assured him of the plan, swore it would be an easy infiltration and limited stay, pledged he would do nothing to risk his safety.

Marty should have known better by now -- Rust’s need to see duties fulfilled, justice done, burns too brightly -- surpasses even Marty’s dedication to his calling. He never should have been persuaded that Rust would not follow this mission to extremes. Damn him.

Lost to musing and trying to drink away the worst of his unease, Marty’s guard is lowered. He is astonished when a whore is able to approach his table on silent feet, makes him jump when the body tumbles into his lap. Marty smells camphor and cloying cloves, feels a weight of leather and silk settling atop him. Hair the color of burnt copper slicked with oil, a painted face with rouged cheeks and berry-red lips, violet shade across the eyes, delicate lashes. Bracelets at the wrist and bells around the ankle. 

Marty glimpses the hued face and guesses at a woman; but the face ducks close, a warm mouth on his earlobe, rasp of stubble, and the mouth says, loud enough to carry, “Fancy a turn, mister?” It is a man speaking, high-pitched and seductive.

Marty’s face heats, and he makes to throw the person off; but long, sinewy arms are locked firm around him with surprising strength. A hand snakes down, down, down between Marty’s legs; squeezes.

He gathers himself to forcibly dislodge the whore, when the voice drops, emerges low and with a knife-sharp edge: “I’ve been followed. Play along. Please. They must believe I am what I look.”

Marty goes rigid -- then as fast relaxes into the scene. He slings an arm around the slender waist, where the flimsy silk shirt bares a stretch of flesh above low-slung leather pants that look painted on, they fit so close. 

He puts back his head and laughs, and it isn’t all an act: the relief he feels is extraordinary, makes him giddy; and the sight of Rust trussed up like a two-bit would prompt such laughter under better circumstances. 

Marty runs a hand along the leather-clad thigh, up and down, like he’s sampling the merchandise. He tilts his head, and Rust leans into his neck, kisses the stretch between ear and shoulder. His lips are wet, his tongue involved in the process, and despite himself Marty shivers. 

As he devours Marty’s neck, Rust drops words alongside kisses. “The man near the door. Can you see him?”

Marty nods enthusiastically, and, playing his role well, pushes his fingers up under Rust’s shirt to feel more of him. Rust’s skin is smooth and heated, with a sheen of sweat, as though he has walked far and fast to arrive here. People are watching them, but without heightened interest; they are engaging in the same actions as a good portion of the room. The man at the door, bearded and black-clad, is staring their way without blinking. 

Rust squirms purposefully in his lap, lets free a laugh provocative and tawdry. Then he reaches for Marty’s chin, slides two fingers along his jaw, tilts his head up and kisses him full on the mouth. 

Marty lets his lips part, dizzy with the knowledge that it is Rust’s tongue sweeping his teeth. Moments pass; an eternity does. Marty feels his cock harden, the proof of his arousal impossible to conceal where Rust presses against him. Rust’s arms circle closer around him; he shifts, grinds, and --

“I’ve a room,” Marty announces for the benefit of the watchers. “And a purse for you there.”

“Much more, I hope, m’lord,” purrs Rust, sliding to his feet with liquid, slinky grace. While Marty gathers his wits and adjusts the fall of his doublet to conceal his straining cock, Rust seizes onto the tankard left for him and tosses back the whole thing in few swallows, his throat an elegant line. 

“Come.” Marty takes hold of Rust’s wrist, pulls him along none too gently. They pass by the man at the door without giving him a second glance. The innkeeper is in their path, and Marty pauses to shove a finger in his face while Rust uses Marty’s bulk as a shield from view.

“If my good-for-nothing man should see fit to return, bid him to sleep in the stables,” Marty tells the innkeeper imperiously. “I am otherwise occupied this evening.”

“As you say, my lord--”

Marty shoulders past him, his hand like iron locked around Rust’s wrist. He can feel the flutter of Rust’s heart at the pulsepoint. 

Down the hall, to the room they chose for being the furthest from the tavern’s clamor and the closest to the stables for a quick escape. Marty shoves the heavy iron key into the lock, pushes open the door, pushes Rust in ahead of him. The door is thrown closed with a decisive slam, then twice barred.

A single tin lantern swings from its peg, dully illuminating the cheap room: straw mattress in the corner, two battered chairs. No windows, which was their preference. The uneven, sloping roof forces Rust to duck, his lanky frame made smaller. 

Now Marty can see all of him -- the whole effect of the outlandish costume, the tarted-up face. He can smell nothing but thick perfume, and his nostrils flare. 

“Martin,” breathes Rust. He appears more like himself outside of the need to perform. Nervous, unbridled energy pulses underneath his skin and lights up his eyes. “I knew I could trust in you to play the part. If there were any other way--” His wounded doe’s eyes are round, and Marty can sense the apology his stubborn lips are trying to form.

Marty steps forward, seizes the obscene V cut of the silk shirt Rust wears. He shakes him, as though sense might be induced through motion, then lets go. “The devil, Rust,” he says gruffly, silencing the apology before it can be forced out. “I thought you must be dead.”

Rust smiles with relief, and it is then that Marty can see the exhaustion beneath the war-paint he wears, the half-moon shadows under his eyes. “It takes more than a few days in a pit of villainy to have at me,” he says.

“You were successful, then?” Marty finds his breath caught.

“I have the information we sought,” says Rust, with a prideful lift of his chin. 

Marty could kiss his mouth again, in celebration. But he narrows his eyes. “You did not tell me your plan called for such a costume, or --” His eyes must be slits. “--such behavior.”

“You would not have agreed, had I done,” Rust points out, maddening and correct. 

“How well,” asks Marty, feeling a sudden heat build, and he knows not if it is anger or something unnameable, “just how well did you play the whore, Rustin?”

Rust ducks his head, then looks up, eyes blazing. “Well enough for you, in the tavern beyond. My lord.”

Marty raises a hand to strike him -- but he has lived through years of Rust’s disobedience and strange, untamable ways, and he is accustomed to it now. No other knight in the Emperor’s service would take on such an insubordinate trainee, but Marty had seen enough of Rust’s meticulous mind at work to risk him. 

Once, he would have let the blow connect; now, after a pause, he drops his hand. There is too much hard-won sympathy between them. His blood is boiling in his veins. His mouth opens, but no sound emerges.

“Shall I show you how finely I can play it?” Rust is too near in the cramped space of the room. His voice softens. “Will you permit me?”

“My God,” says Marty. His anger comes too quickly and leaves as fast. He is left standing on the edge of a precipice from which there seems no way forward. Either he must fall -- or retreat, and Marty has never shrunk from any challenge in all his days. 

The tension so long strung between them has snapped: vanished now that Marty knows what it is like to have Rust pliable in his arms, Rust’s heated breath at his ear, Rust’s tongue between his teeth. 

Before, a secret speculation; thoughts in the dark at night, with Rust asleep nearby; a mere suggestion, the dimmest outline of desire. Now it is comprised of bold lines, fever-bright eyes, bared flesh--

When Rust steps forward, Marty cannot speak, but neither does he make a move to stop him. Rust halts close enough to kiss him, but does not; his hands come up, and begin to make quick work of Marty’s garments. In the early days of service Rust’s duties included mending his clothes and helping Marty dress; he knows every fastening, every tie, and his fingers are skilled and sure. 

Rust slips a too-smart hand past fabric and finds Marty still hard, and Marty’s heart speeds at the touch and he finds his voice again. “Do not -- you should not--”

“Why?” Rust is so close, too close, the word exhaled so that Marty could but part his lips and taste it. “Do you believe it a sin? Do you still believe in sin, Martin?”

“I believe in evil,” Marty says. He cannot look away from Rust’s glittering eyes, brighter than the lantern. Rust has not withdrawn his hand -- his hand curls at the base of Marty’s cock, begins to stroke. Marty sees sparks and feels that he must be on fire. “I -- I believe in sinful people. I have pursued and punished many.”

“But you are good,” Rust murmurs, his grip unrelenting. “You have earned an earthly reward.”

“Ah, ah.” The fight leaves Marty, and he tilts back against the door, loose-boned, as Rust’s hand moves on him. “I would not have asked this of you.”

“And if it is sought after?” Rust says. He goes to his knees, his tall form folded -- then he is guiding Marty’s cock free of constricting layers. He looks up from under those long, painted eyelashes. “If I dream of this, when I dream awake?” 

Marty has no answer. The first touch of Rust’s lips to his cock makes him swear an oath, and then Rust is swallowing him down. His mouth is hot and wet, all tight suction and wicked tongue. Marty has a thought that Rust is good at this, too good; he has had practice; then all thought is gone as Rust works him deeper. 

Pleasure pulses low in Marty’s belly and radiates throughout his body. An act so exquisite in execution cannot be wrong. He knows that Rust does not believe in God, has spoken many blasphemies before -- but the God that Marty believes in would not deny him this. 

No, God made man, and some men he gives to each other; of this doctrine Marty is now certain. 

His hands are balled up at his sides. He lifts them, sees how they shake, then buries them in Rust’s hair. Rust’s hair is damp with oil that has tamed it down and made it seem darker. Marty gathers fistfuls to anchor himself. With the truth out between them, he can admit to himself that he has longed to hold Rust just so. 

As confidence returns to Marty, the desire in him redoubles. Rust is moving slowly, carefully, lavishing him with sensuous licks and luxuriant pressure; his lips make a red ring stretched around Marty’s cock. It is clear that he would draw this out of Marty for a long while, to give Marty every pleasure -- he is unaware, even now, of how fierce Marty’s need is, how deep. Rust proceeds like a man trying not to startle, as though Marty requires delicacy. Marty will show him what he truly requires.

His grip firms in Rust’s hair, and he tugs hard enough to command attention. A shudder runs through Rust, and his gaze flicks upward. With Rust watching him, a question in his eyes, Marty’s hips surge forward, and he thrusts purposefully past those red, red lips. Then he starts to fuck Rust’s mouth in earnest. 

Rust’s eyes go wide, but he takes the length and force of Marty’s cock without choking, relaxed at once into the motion, as though they have trained at this. A sound like an approving hum emerges from Rust’s throat, vibrating into Marty’s skin and singing through his blood. 

Once begun, Marty cannot slow his punishing speed, and he pushes in again and again and again, the slick tight heat welcoming him and finally coaxing free a desperate moan. 

Like this he cannot last; pleasure consumes and unhinges him, and in short order undoes him. With a word of warning that Rust does not heed -- Rust sucks him harder -- he spills into Rust’s mouth, the joy of it shaking him to the bone, his hands like fighting fists in Rust’s hair. 

Rust swallows, drinking of him, his eyelids fluttering closed. Then he licks Marty clean with a thorough reverence that rocks Marty back on his feet as much as his release had. Finally Rust stays kneeling, head down and breathing fast, until Marty offers a hand and pulls him to his feet.

Now that it is done Marty feels nothing like regret. The sins of flesh that priests rattle on about are their own false demons. There are demons enough in men. A mighty, just God would not be frightened by such a thing as has passed. Did God not gift them this instinct, the will to receive and take and worship? 

Marty cups Rust’s jaw, runs his thumb along the fine ridge of his cheekbone. Rust’s features run with sweat and paint. He is trying hard to keep his face a mask, but Marty knows him too well not to read what is written there.

“I could perform the same act,” says Marty quietly, not quite trusting his voice. He has never tried anything of the kind, but he knows what he prefers, how it feels best, and the idea of his mouth on Rust excites him all at once -- he no sooner speaks but dares to imagine it, and feels a spike of lust go through him.

“Martin--” 

“But take this off first,” says Marty, thumbing the sharp-boned cheek again. “I would have you look like yourself.”

Struck silent, Rust turns on his heel and paces the few steps across the room to the table, where there is a cracked basin, a wooden bucket of water, cloth. He scrubs at his face, shedding color; he strips off the silk shirt and bathes his chest, wiping away the cloying scent. Marty watches him, unabashed, not looking away as he has taken care to before.

That Rust is aroused is impossible to ignore or hide -- the cut of his leather trousers leave no space for it. Yet Marty watches the tension gather in Rust’s bared shoulders, the rounded curve of them showing his hesitation.

Marty crosses over to stand beside him, clears his throat. “You do not wish it?”

Rust’s eyes, his burning, intense stare that sees through the lies that people tell, that few have the courage to meet, seem to bore into Marty’s. “I do wish. But it is not proper that a knight should kneel to me. That you should.”

A small smile twists Marty’s mouth. “I think that we have gone past propriety, you and I.” Still Rust stands frozen, finely carved as a statue. “What, then?”

“Allow me to serve you.” The fresh-scrubbed face is pink-cheeked, and blood rises to darken Rust’s flush. “I know I could do it well. That I might give you great pleasure.”

Marty cants his head, unwilling to admit to his confusion. “You have,” he points out, with an airy gesture at the door. 

“There is -- there is more that I might do,” says Rust, speaking slowly, as he does when he is sounding out a puzzle. “I have thought on it -- most nights I have. If you -- if you let me know you --”

Marty goes pale in contrast to Rust’s red, feels the kick of his heart in his chest, the way that his heart starts to audibly beat in his ears. He cannot deny the unexpected response of his body, the sudden ache within him, confronted with a suggestion that he unaccountably _wants_. It is like being given a piece of himself he never knew was missing. Rust, a master at solving riddles. 

Marty opens his mouth, closes it. A reprimand dies on his tongue. A refutation finds no voice. At last, unable to speak it, he nods.

Only that, and yet the transformation of Rust’s expression is fantastic -- piercing sunlight through clouds, the gray winter that cloaks him giving way to spring. He smiles, perhaps the purest smile Marty has seen grace his lips. He takes hold of Marty’s hand, and leads them to the bed.

Rust divests him of his clothing, as he has done many times before, but this time with wide eyes and focused intent. Each new part of Marty unveiled receives the touch of his mouth, the tender attention of his fingertips. Whenever Rust finds a healed-over wound, his lips brush over the scar feather-light. He unlaces Marty’s weapons from their sheaths last, and lays them within reach -- the both of them too on guard to be far from arms, even like this.

He bids Marty to sit on the mattress, then kneels to tug free his boots. Naked, Marty would feel exposed were he not made into a venerated idol. Rust kisses every inch of him with his dark head bowed like a supplicant. Positioned between Marty’s spread thighs, Rust looks up, eyes flashing. The determination on his face is incredible. Marty has been made the puzzle; he knows that expression. Then Rust goes low, and--

“What!” The word, the gasp, is torn from Marty, but the shattering sensation only blooms. Rust has bent to apply his tongue to Marty’s entrance, the first licks causing lightning to sizzle through Marty’s bones, and it is beyond any fantasy now, beyond anything that he knows. When Rust’s tongue breaches him, suddenly _inside_ , Marty cries out. The sound is too loud. Rust’s hand is on his thigh, soothing, but he does not pull back -- his tongue is insistent, sly, too smart, and it learns Marty’s depths. How long they stay like that Marty does not know; time seems suspended, his breathing coming too fast or too slow; it is a few moments only, it is years, a lifetime, two.

At last, Rust draws away, sits back on his heels. Sweat plasters his hair to his angular face, and he rakes the errant strands back with one hand. He looks, thinks Marty, like a damaged angel, like a weathered statue carved into an abandoned church. He is beautiful and a step removed from the rest of mankind and also inordinately pleased with himself. 

“That did not displease you,” he says to Marty, not even a question. Rust’s ears were full of his moans.

Marty kicks out a leg, narrowly missing him, embarrassed and impatient and almost fully aroused again. “Get on with it, then,” he pants, “before I change my mind.”

It’s a toothless threat, meant to tease, but Rust, who cannot always understand humor with the same depths that he grasps horrors, takes it as a warning, and moves at once in response. He slides from the bed to quickly peel off leather, unashamed or too used to baring his body. Marty hopes it is the former, and rightly so: Rust in the nude is a stunning shape of a man, the set of his shoulders and arms strong with defined muscle, his stomach flat and firm, his limbs well-turned. His cock is heavy between his legs, long and with a thick girth Marty did not expect. Marty’s throat feels dry; he swallows twice in quick succession.

Rust removes the bangles from his wrists and the bells from his feet, retrieves a small pouch that had been bound to his belt, and rejoins Marty on the bed. From the pouch he produces a vial of oil, which he pours out and begins to warm in his hands. 

Marty’s sudden frown is swift and turned by jealousy. “I suppose you--”

“The vial was full,” says Rust with conviction. “I allowed no man or woman to have me, though quite some tried. I could not convince anyone I was a whore without a whore’s trade-tools on my person. I was searched, of course.”

“Of -- of course,” Marty echoes, cursing everyone involved internally.

“What I have to offer,” says Rust, husky-voiced, “I give to you alone, Martin.” He reaches, careful but sure, and one slicked finger eases into Marty. It feels new, and unknown, but it is not unpleasant -- Marty bites his lip, holds his breath, closes his eyes. “Are you--?”

“Fine,” snaps Marty. “Another. Don’t dawdle.”

Rust’s low laugh is like being engulfed in satin. Two of his fingers -- long, tapered, calloused -- are inside Marty, stretching him. After impossibly extended moments of this, a third is employed. Marty is full-up, pushed to the limit, there is no way to imagine how he will fit Rust’s cock when mere fingers are almost too much; but no sooner does the thought of fitting Rust cross his mind than Rust’s fingers crook on a spot within him that sets off a conflagration. Marty cries out again, taken aback by the flare of intense pleasure. He had not known -- how could he have never known --

Confident, Rust strikes at the same spot again and again, until Marty keens, his hips twisting up from the bed in a bid for more. 

“It is well that they believe us so engaged,” says Rust, with a jerk of his head to the door, the tavern below. “If any did not trust our act, now they will be persuaded.”

Marty knows a few of his exclamations have carried. He does not care. Right then, nothing save an invading army would break his focus on the heady bliss Russ induces. An army might be made to wait. 

“Rustin,” he manages, unsure how to indicate the next step, unable to exist much longer without discovering it. 

“Yes.” The studious, serious expression on Rust’s face had first endeared him to Marty, and he is not surprised to see it now. The expression shows Rust at his most dedicated, all other distractions cast aside. He withdraws his fingers, and the feeling of sudden emptiness is so abrupt that Marty must bite his own tongue to keep from protesting it. Marty watches, heavy-lidded, as Rust anoints his cock with glistening oil. Then Rust stretches out over him, balanced on broad arms. 

Marty blinks up at him. “Like this? Like a woman?”

“Like men,” answers Rust, lips to Marty’s jaw. “Like women. Unlike beasts, which we are close enough to. This urge alone elevates us: I would see your face.”

To this Marty makes no response, then cannot, as Rust’s mouth covers his. In the same movement Rust is aligned, and their eyes, open, lock and hold. Rust takes hold of his cock and guides himself into Marty. He moves slowly, thrusting in an inch, then pausing before the next. It seems to take a thousand years. 

Marty puts his head back against the mattress and sucks air into his lungs, but he has no will to simply breathe through this. He is here as much as Rust is -- wants as much or more -- and he is active, spreading his legs wider without shame, putting up his hips when he finds that eases the passage. He startles a groan out of Rust when he does so, all the more reward.

It hurts, in the beginning, a sharp flash of discomfort unlike anything that Marty has felt -- an intimate wound, secret and deep. But compared to the trials they have faced together, the battles fought, the painful blows delivered, it is nothing. He is proud to endure it, his whole body alive with sensation to know that it is Rust above him, inside him, transfiguring the forbidden into something that belongs to only them. 

Just as soon as Marty is accustomed to it, the pain recedes, like a wave on the shore pulled back to sea; and all of Rust is buried within him. It is everything that Marty has wanted and not known the words for wanting. He puts his arms around Rust, and surges up to kiss him to say what he cannot speak.

“Should I,” murmurs Rust against Marty’s lips, and Marty nods, so that Rust pulls out and thrusts in again, and oh, Lord, this time is even better, and the third thrust is like the rapture. Rust’s cock hits the same spot that his fingers had ignited, and Marty wants to shout; he sinks his teeth into the meat of Rust’s shoulder instead, his hips urging repetition. 

After that Rust’s tightly held control seems to unravel. His hands grab onto Marty for purchase, and wherever they grip they leave behind the imprint of his nails or the shadow of a new violet bruise -- it is as though he cannot have enough of Marty, even in the act of possession. His thrusts are hard and regular now. The rhythm he sets is punishing for himself and ecstasy for Marty, and each time he moves inside an expression dawns on Rust’s face like he is in the midst of revelation.

On and on and on. Now Rust is properly fucking him, rutting into him without end, yet those crude descriptives do not encompass their act. All of Rust’s concentration is dedicated to making his motion profound, to elevating Marty as he takes him; whenever Marty makes a sound Rust swallows it, tastes it on his tongue, to make certain it is sweet and without hint of pain or protest. Rust’s hand slips between their sweat-drenched bodies, finds and cradles Marty’s cock, begins to stroke him in time. 

Marty sees the stars wheel over Rust’s shoulder, his pleasure doubled, tripled, infinite. If he wraps his legs around Rust’s waist to hook him closer, he can transmit how he needs Rust to go faster, deeper, to stop holding back and seal their compact. Rust receives his message, and with a moan torn from his throat, complies. 

There is no stopping Rust now, as he loses caution, gives Marty all that he is -- impulsive and uncontrollable and irrational and brilliant, so damned brilliant when dedicated, and Marty understands then the depths of Rust’s devotion to him. 

Rust would never stop, would break himself first on the altar of Marty, would give all that he is and burn out like a Roman candle before claiming his own pleasure first. His tight, knowing hand on Marty’s cock works unhurried, though lines of exertion crease his forehead, and his hips stutter now as he thrusts. 

Marty laughs, thrilled and aflame, and gives himself up to Rust’s ministrations, liquid heat striping across their bellies. The stars are behind his eyes now; all he can see is Rust and light, Rust haloed above him as he drives on. At his release Rust’s features show elation, hope, wonder, triumph, in quick succession. It is then that Marty realizes they have barely spoken through it all, though a vast conversation has been had in silence. 

Marty works his jaw, tries to recall speech, then says, “Come on, you bastard, show how you love me,” and as though he has spoken a magical phrase -- perhaps he has -- Rust shakes apart on command, sinking inside Marty and spilling into him with a sworn oath. His head is down on Marty’s shoulder, his lips press there in an unceasing kiss; his hips circle and his cock, staking claim, fills Marty up with warmth. 

Marty gets a fistful of Rust’s hair, pulls back so that he can see what Rust looks like without barriers -- what Rust, contented, could look like. He looks soft and youthful, vulnerable and trusting, as he might once have been before he knew pain and hunted monsters. 

Rust blinks back at Marty and he is so lovely, undamaged now, made whole in the joining, as though all the cracked and splintered parts of them are fixed when merged. It is not simply speculation -- Marty knows this to be true for himself; he feels the same way, and wonders what his own face must look like. Does he, too, seem younger, a brash innocent, with bold eyes excited for their next challenge? He feels it. 

They stay like that to the limit of their bodies, then Rust slides out of him carefully. He presses a kiss to Marty’s knee. He leans over the side of the bed, groping after discarded clothes, and uses the silk shirt he’d worn to wipe Marty clean, then himself. Marty lies breathing, still awash in sensation and the lingering glow of what they made, and soon Rust stretches out beside him. He is too far away, seeming hesitant, but when Marty throws out an arm, Rust curls into him at once.

The silence spins out, not uncomfortable, each man with his own thoughts and aftershocks. Then Marty says, “Good God. How long did you say you’ve thought on doing that?”

“Too long,” answers Rust. “Perhaps from the beginning. Perhaps before I met you, but thought one day I would.” 

Marty is used to Rust not making complete sense in statements; it no longer makes him pause. “Well,” he says, content to let that pass. “It was well done.”

Rust turns his face into Marty’s arm, to hide his pleased reaction. Happiness is harder for Rust to show than apathy or hatred, as though the gentler emotion threatens to overwhelm him. He speaks quickly, philosophically, his words tumbling together: “Imagine telling a visitor from a planet beyond the stars that we are the rulers of this earth, that we have tamed the ground and dominated its creatures. And yet the one naturally given way we have to worship each other has been banned by ancient words on paper and cadres of old men who never loved anyone besides. How foolish we would seem, how small and fragile and frightened. Men get no answer from God, so they speak for him, and do a poor impression.”

The speech is not in response to anything that Marty can figure, so he simply lets his fingers sift through Rust’s hair. “A visitor from beyond the stars.”

“Consider it, Martin.” Just as fast as he has made himself fraught, Rust moves onto another line of thought. He has the swiftest and the strangest brain Marty has ever encountered, which has the effect of never boring Marty or leaving him uninterested. He begins to lay out for Marty all of the evidence that he uncovered on his mission, and speaks names that make Marty shiver and pull Rust closer for warmth.

It is the missing piece to their puzzle, Marty thinks, that Rust has found at last. The men Rust names are important figures at court, in Vatican City, even close to the Emperor himself. Some they have suspected of conspiracy, while others have expertly cloaked themselves in shadow and were unknown before Rust found them out.

“Whores keep secrets,” Rust is saying, “but not from each other, when they concern dangerous men who trade in pain.”

Marty tugs him closer still. “It will be nearly impossible to expose those you name. They wield great power, and we have none. It would be wise to leave them be.”

He can feel Rust gathering himself for outrage in his arms. “To come so far, and have the proof we need--”

“I did not say that we were wise,” says Marty, with a grim twist of his lips. “The Yellow King will fall for his crimes against the Emperor’s subjects. Now that we know his pawns and bishops, we will find a way to trap him. Whether we go with him is the question you and I cannot answer.”

Rust sits up all at once, then climbs back over atop Marty, kissing his mouth again and again. “I knew,” he says, eyes rekindled, “I knew that you would be brave and true.”

“I am a fool,” agrees Marty. He frames Rust’s face between his hands, and kisses him in return; it is a tender kiss, full of decision and intent, and it carries on until their breath is lost. It is in stark opposition to the sloppy, farcical embrace they displayed in the tavern. This sparks Marty’s memory, and he asks, “The man who followed you. Who does he serve? Is he a threat?”

“There was no man,” says Rust readily enough. A mischievous smile plays across his lips. “Well, there was a man. He was a patron of the tavern who looked over at us at an opportune moment. I should be affronted that you believed I could be followed. But I forgive you.”

For a moment, Marty splutters, outraged; but he is as quick to anger as he is to lose it, and he rolls Rust over underneath him, laughing full-bodied. “Treachery!”

“Upon my return, I saw a way to put my disguise to better use,” Rust admits. Both of his eyebrows are up. “Long have I looked for a reason to be slung across your lap.”

“Trickery and duplicity,” Marty goes on, kissing Rust’s throat. He kisses the hollow beneath Rust’s ear, the stubbled swell of his cheek, the brow behind which ideas move like quicksilver. 

He gets hold of Rust’s hands, pinning them to the bed above his head. Supine and encouraging, Rust arches up underneath him. Marty glimpses the near future, anticipates what it will be like to unlock Rust with his fingers and move inside him. Considers how it will look and feel to lie on his back again, only this time to have Rust in his lap indeed -- to have Rust astride his cock, with his rider’s thighs and his incandescent eyes on Marty. 

“I shall have to chasten you,” says Marty. “Falsehoods between partners violates the Order’s first oaths.”

Rust tilts up best he can with caught hands, his face close to Marty’s, and murmurs that he is deserving and ready to receive his punishment. On his face is unhindered happiness, what might be joy -- both of them will become better at recognizing it -- for Marty has never called them equals before. 

From that night, they are bound to share the same bed, the same life, the same fate; for those so joined cannot be separated by acts of God or men.


End file.
